Godzilla v Mechagodzilla in spades!

Rating: 7/10 (17 July 2013)

Del Toro (the director) grew up watching Japanese Monster movies from Toho pictures. His reaction - like everyone else's - was 'Why can't we have more monster action and less human talk?' The child del Toro has grown up, and has made precisely such a film with all the CGI that he can muster. So go expecting to see monsters grappling with giant robots every ten minutes in full glorious colour and technical brilliance. Any other attitude is just being stupid! The story is simple - giant sea monsters are appearing all over the world and wrecking cities. Cue human response is to build giant mechanical monsters driven by two people in bonded mind meld ('the drift'). The fights are a cross between WWF and some vicious swords and rocketry battles! The action is very spectacular and what CGI does best - it beats hands down any of the overlong Zod/Superman face offs in 'Man of Steel.' A pity then that the monsters are not individualised enough, as in Godzilla movies, so that the action is a little muzzy and repetitive. And the real villains look like a rerun of 'Independence Day.' But go turn off brain and enjoy - and have a rest from pathetic attempts at darkness and depth of comic book hero movies!!